Lead supervisor:
Dr Sam Hanks 
Other supervisor(s):
- Dr Daniel Evans
Start date: January 2026 (Part time)
Award: General
Subject Pathway:
Criminology and Law
Thematic Cluster:
Rights and Governance Cluster
In partnership with:
"Navigating the Labyrinth": Class and the performance labour of Engaging with Probation in Wales
My research examines how social class shapes the experience of probation supervision in Wales. Probation is presented as a neutral evidenced based process. But progress is judged through conversation, presentation and emotional display. I argue that people from working class backgrounds must undertake additional "performance labour": the linguistic, emotional and presentational work needed to appear credible, remorseful and compliant in ways practitioners recognise and value.
The study draws on Bourdieu's habitus, capital and symbolic violence within a critical realist framework, and develops the concept of the carceriat: a class fraction whose precarity is produced through contact with the justice system. Wales offers a distinctive setting. Devolution shapes the policy landscape, the Welsh literature on class and supervision is limited. This research is also pertinent with then system change occurring within HMPPS due to the roll out ARNS assessment system replacing OASys
I will aim to use an ethnographic design, combining interviews with people under supervision and practitioners with observation across Wales. Class will be critical, but data is limited so the use of NS-SEC seems a pragmatic option.
My position as both a senior probation professional and a person with lived experience of the justice system informs the work and is as a source of insight, (not a limitation).
Research Impact
This research aims to change how probation in Wales understands progress to "disistance". If supervision rewards those who can perform credibility in familiar middle class terms, then apparently objective judgements about risk, compliance and desistance may reflect class advantage as much as change.
The findings will inform implementation of ARNS, supporting assessment tools and practitioner training that recognise different ways of communicating commitment to change. They will also contribute to wider debates on disproportionality, which have centred more on diversity of class than on a class group.
Academically, the work offers three contributions: performance labour as an analytical concept, the carceriat as a class fraction, and a sustained study of class in Welsh probation supervision, where little currently exists.
Findings will be shared through publications, conference presentations and engagement with HMPPS and Welsh partners.
The research,importantly seeks to take seriously the knowledge, skills and experiences held by people under supervision. Their accounts, set alongside practitioner perspectives, will show what supervision asks of them and at what cost, and could shape fairer, more transparent practice, which could unattainable goals that result in negative outcomes. And to drive the collection of data such as NS-SEC which is currently collected for staff but not those in the care of probation.
Biography
I am a doctoral researcher in criminology, studying how social class shapes experiences of probation supervision in Wales. I study part time alongside my role as Engaging People on Probation Manager for HMPPS Probation Service Wales, where I lead strategic programme work on lived experience engagement, peer mentor development and lived experince employment.. I hold an MA in Applied Criminal Justice and Criminology.
I am also a trustee of the Hardman Trust, a charity supporting people serving long term custodial sentences. And a trustee of the the Northgate pride in place, a £20m fund to regenerated a deprived area of Swansea.
WIth my own lived experience of the justice system; motivates my commitment to research that people on the receiving end of state services.
My supervisors are Dr Sam Hanks and Dr Daniel Evans of Swansea University, Who have both foolishly/passionately encouraged my research